February Review

February. It's only shorter by 3 days at the most but what a difference it makes. February flew! How was it for you?

This month I worked on my logo. This was one of my initial drafts.

Here, it was a very productive month, albeit in a rather erratic, disorganised kind of way at times! I had an Evernote malfunction (my precious tick lists!!!) and although I did order myself a new timer (for Pomodoro purposes) it turned out to be utterly useless. I've sent it back and still haven't found a replacement. I guess I will just have to take the plunge and go digital!

I've done a lot more drawing this month and I'm starting to feel more competent digitally. I started taking more courses in the last few weeks - I did this amazing lettering course and discovered Laura Coyle's tuition videos - I'm really pleased with the results I'm getting on LiveTrace as a result of the lettering course and Laura's videos have helped me work more efficiently.

Damask style pattern that I really enjoyed drawing with my fountain pen.

I've had 3 collections on the go, all of which are not quite finished yet - at least two patterns per collection needs some final tweaking. I'm not going to start another collection until these three are finished now though as the work seems to be piling up and I really need to schedule some time to sort out my website and getting the work that I've already done onto some products/mock ups. I've been a bit braver and shared more images of work in progress lately which has proved to be a positive exercise. My problem is that I just can't seem to keep it simple when it comes to designing - I want every pattern to teach me something. Actually that's not really a problem - at this stage where I am at the beginning I should be learning something all the time - it's the deadlines that are the problems! Whilst I'm not working to anyone else's time constraints, I think it's better to be focusing on learning and honing my own style.

I've also expanded my blog to be more inclusive of other designers and this has been so rewarding. It's so nice to be hearing about how other designers work and I'm getting that sense of community back that I had when I was on ABSPD. The new Studio Tuesday feature kicked off with a look at the work of Sophie Honeybelle and I've put out calls for submissions for Word Wednesday too.

Read it here

My card project has ground to a halt and I'm okay with that for now. I've just not done anything to promote it or add to my designs. I'm not saying that it's gone altogether - I just really need to do some other things before I can give it the energy and experience that it needs. I was so upset after losing my whole portfolio just before Christmas that I've just wanted to concentrate on rebuilding it. Once I have a more substantial body of work, I'm sure I'll feel better about it and get it going.

Whilst not my favourite image, one of my favourite quotes for Word Wednesday!

So, hello to March... In all things non-pattern related I get to go home (YAY!), see the ocean and hope to see a satisfactory end to a long drawn out financial/legal issue (everything crossed, please!).

In case you were wondering, there are a couple of days left to enter the February Tigerprint competition and the ABSPD testimonial contest.

Thanks for reading and have a lovely weekend,

Frankie x